orienteering

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly written

Orienteering is racing across country navigating by map and compass. Go orienteering, an orienteering course, orienteering controls.

The route is not set, only the order of the checkpoints, so choosing the line between them is most of the skill. It began in Sweden as military training and the word came into English from Swedish.

Definitions of orienteering

1nounorienteeringRacing across country navigating by map and compass.C1
“In orienteering, you race through the forest with a map and compass to find each checkpoint.”

orienteering is a sport.

Where it comes from

Swedish orientering comes from orientera, to orient oneself.

Swedish
orientering
English, today
orienteering

Swedish orientering, from orientera + ing.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sports & Games Played

Practise this word

orienteering in the wild

Variants include automobile, underwater, mountain bike, ski, and trail orienteering.
Orienteering
The most common form is foot orienteering, also known as FootO.
Orienteering
The International Orienteering Federation (IOF) is the international governing body of the sport of orienteering.
International Orienteering Federation
The IOF governs four orienteering disciplines: foot orienteering, mountain bike orienteering, ski orienteering, and trail orienteering.
International Orienteering Federation
The World Orienteering Championships (often abbreviated as WOC) is an international orienteering competition which has been organized by the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) since 1966.
World Orienteering Championships

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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